Conventional cochlear implant systems include a sound processor configured to be located external to a patient (e.g., behind the ear) and a cochlear implant configured to be implanted within the patient. In this configuration, the sound processor may process audio signals presented to the patient and wirelessly transmit stimulation parameters to the cochlear implant so that the cochlear implant may generate and apply stimulation pulses representative of the audio signals to the patient by way of a plurality of electrodes implanted within the patient. For example, the sound processor may transmit a forward telemetry sequence comprising a series of electrode-specific amplitude words to the cochlear implant, which may then process the amplitude words to derive the amplitude of the stimulation pulses to be applied by way of the electrodes.
Conventional cochlear implant systems require the electrode-specific amplitude words to be transmitted in a predetermined order. For example, if a particular cochlear implant system has sixteen total electrodes (electrodes E1 through E16), the sound processor included in the cochlear implant system may be required to transmit the electrode-specific amplitude words to the cochlear implant in sequential order (i.e., by transmitting the amplitude word specific to electrode E1, followed by the amplitude word specific to electrode E2, and so on until the amplitude word specific to electrode E16 is transmitted) or in any other predetermined order.
Unfortunately, the order in which the amplitude words are transmitted cannot be dynamically changed during stimulation. This becomes problematic when it is desirable to skip certain electrodes during a particular stimulation frame (e.g., in accordance with an N of M stimulation strategy). In these cases, a “skip” command associated with a particular electrode (i.e., a command configured to direct the cochlear implant to not apply stimulation pulses by way of the electrode) may be transmitted in place of an amplitude word for the electrode. However, the skip command still occupies a time slot in the forward telemetry sequence and thus slows down the overall stimulation rate that could be achieved by not transmitting the skip command